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A 



SERMON, 

PREACHED IN 

ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH, EDINBURGH, 

BEFORE THE 

SOCIETY 

FOR THE 

REUEF OF THE DESTITUTE SICK, 

ON THE 

LORD'S DAY, APRIL 18, 18 IS, 

,9nd published in consequence of their earnest request 



BY THOMAS CHALMERS, 

MINISTER OF KILMANy. 




PUBLISHED BY KIRK ANP MERCEIN. 

1817. 



PSALM XLI. 1. 



^'^ Blessed is he thai considereth the Poor ; the Lord will de- 
liver him in time of trouble.'''' 

There is an evident want of congeniality be- 
tween the wisdom of this world, and the wisdom 
of the Christian. The term " wisdom," carries my 
reverence along with it. It brings before me a 
grave and respectable character, whose rationality 
predominates over the inferior principles of his 
constitution, and to whom I willingly yield that 
peculiar homage which the enlightened, and the 
judicious, and the manly, are sure to exact from a 
surrounding neighbourhood. Now, so long as this 
wisdom has for its object some secular advantage, 
I yield it an unqualified reverence. It is a rever- 
ence which all understand, and all sympathise 
with. If, in private life, a man be wise in the ma- 
nagement of his farm, or his fortune, or his family; 
or if, in public life, he have wisdom to steer an 
empire through all its difficulties, and to carry it to 
aggrandisement and renown — the respect which I 
feel for such wisdom as this, is most cordial and 
entire, and supported by the universal acknowledg- 
ment of all whom I call to attend to it. 

Let me now suppose that this wisdom ha^ 



4 



changed its object — that the man whom I am re« 
presenting to exemplify this respectable attribute^ 
instead of being wise for time, is wise for eternity — 
that he labours by the faith and sanctification of 
the gospel for unperishable honours— that, instead 
of listening to him with admiration at his sagacity, 
as he talks of business, or politics, or agriculture, 
we are compelled to listen to him talking of the 
hope within the vail, and of Christ being the pow- 
er of God, and the wisdom of God, unto salvation. 
What becomes of your respect for him now ? Are 
there not some of you who are quite sensible that 
this respect is greatly impaired, since the wisdom 
of the man has taken so unaccountable a change 
in its object and in its direction ? The truth is, that 
the greater part of the world feel no respect at all 
for a wisdom which they do not comprehend. They 
may love the innocence of a decidedly religious 
character, but they feel no sublime or command- 
ing sentiment of veneration for its wisdom. All the 
truth of the Bible, and all the grandeur of eternity, 
will not redeem it from a certain degree of con- 
tempt. Terms which lower, undervalue, and de- 
grade, suggest themselves to the mind; and strong- 
ly dispose it to throw a mean and disagreeable co- 
louring over the man who, sitting loose to the ob- 
jects of the world, has become altogether a Chris- 
tian. It is needless to expatiate ; but what I have 
seen myself, and what must have fallen under the 
observation of many whom I address, carry in them 
the testimony of experience to the assertion of the 



5 



Apostle, " that the things of the spirit of God are 
foolishness to the natural man, neither can he know 
them, for they are spiritually discerned." 

Now, what I have said of the respectable attri- 
bute of wisdom, is applicable, with almost no vari- 
ation, to another attribute of the human character, 
to which I would assign the gentler epithet of 
"lovely." The attribute to which I allude, is that 
of benevolence. This is the burden of every poet's 
song, and every eloquent and interesting enthusi- 
ast gives it his testimony. I speak not of the en- 
thusiasm of methodists and devotees — I speak of 
that enthusiasm of fine sentiment which embel- 
lishes the pages of elegant literature, and is ad- 
dressed to all her sighing and amiable votaries, in 
the various forms of novel, and poetry, and dramatic 
entertainment. You would think if any thing could 
bring the Christian at one vdth the world around 
him, it would be this; and that, in the ardent bene- 
volence which figures in novels, and sparkles in poe- 
try, there would be an entire congeniality with the 
benevolence of the gospel. I venture to say, how- 
ever, that there never existed a stronger repulsion 
between two contending sentiments, than between 
the benevolence of the Christian, and the benevo- 
lence which is the theme of elegant literature — 
that the one, with all its accompaniments of tears, 
and sensibilities, and interesting cottages, is neither 
felt nor understood by the Christian as such ; and the 
other, with its work and labours of love — its en- 
during hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christy 



6 



and its living, not to itself, but to the will of Him 
who died for us, and who rose again, is not only not 
understood, but positively nauseated, by the poe- 
tical amateur. 

But the contrast does not stop here. The be- 
nerolence of the gospel is not only at antipodes 
with the visionary sons and daughters of poetry, 
butit even varies in some of its most distinguishing 
features with the experimental benevolence of 
real and familiar life. The fantastic benevolence 
of poetry is now indeed pretty well exploded : and, 
in the more popular works of the age, there is a be- 
nevolence of a far truer and more substantial kind 
substituted in its place — the benevolence which 
you meet with among men of business and obser- 
vation — the benevolence which bustles and finds 
employment among the most public and ordinary 
scenes, and which seeks for objects, not where the 
flower blows loveliest, and the stream, with its gen- 
tle murmurs, falls sweetest on the ear, but finds 
them in his every day walks^ — goes in quest of 
them through the heart of the great city, and is not 
afraid to meet them in its most putrid lanes and 
loathsome receptacles. 

Now, it must be acknowledged, that this bene- 
volence is of a far moro respectable kind than that 
poetic sensibility, which is of no use, because it 
admits of no application. Yet I am not afraid to 
say, that, respectable as it is, it does not come up 
to the benevolence of the Christian, and is at vari- 
ance, in some of its most capital ingredients, with 



7 



the morality of the gospel It is well, and very 
well, as far as it goes ; and that Christian is wanting 
to the will of his master who refuses to share and 
go along with it. The Christian will do all this, 
but he would like to do more ; and it is at the pre- 
cise point where he proposes to do more, that he 
finds himself abandoned by the co-operation and 
good wishes of those who had hitherto supported 
him. The Christian goes as far as the votary of 
this useful benevolence, but then he would Hke to 
go further, and this is the point at which he is mor- 
tified to find that his old coadjutors refuse to 
go along with him ; and that, instead of being 
strengthened by their assistance, he has their con- 
tempt and their ridicule ; or, at all events, their 
total want of sympathy, to contend with. The 
truth is, that the benevolence I allude to, with all 
its respectable air of business and good sense, is 
altogether a secular benevolence. Through all 
the extent of its operations, it carries in it no 
reference .to the eternal duration of its object. 
Time, and the accommodations of time, form all 
its subject, and all its exercise. It labours, and 
often with success, to provide for its object a warm 
and well-sheltered tenement, but it looks not be- 
yond the few litde years when the earthly house 
of this tabernacle shall be dissolved — when the 
soul shall be driven from its perishable tenement, 
and the only benevolence it will acknowledge or 
care for, will be the benevolence of those who 
have directed it to a building not made with hands^ 



8 



eternal in the heavens. This, then, is the point 
at vvhich the benevolence of the gospel separates 
from that worldly benevolence, to u hich, as far as 
it goes. I ofter my cheerful and unmingled testi- 
mony. The one minds earthly things, the other 
has its conversation in heaven. Even when the 
immediate object of both is the same, you will ge- 
nerally perceive an evident distinction in the prin- 
ciple. Individuals, for example, may co-operate, 
and will often meet in the same room, be members 
of the same society, and go hand-in-hand cordi- 
ally together lor the education of the poor. But 
the forming habits of virtuous industry, and good 
members of society, which are the sole considera- 
tion in the heart of the worldly philanthropist, are 
but mere accessions in the heart of the Christian. 
The main impulse of his benevolence lies in fur- 
nishing the poor with the means of enjoying that 
bread of lite which came down from heaven^ 
and in introducing them to the knowledge of 
those scriptures which are the power of* God unto 
salvation to every one who believeth. Now, it is 
so far a blessing to the w orld that there is a co-ope- 
ration in the immediate object. But what I con- 
tend for, is, that there is a total want of congenial- 
ity in the principle — that the moment you strip the 
institution of its temporal advantages, and make it 
repose on the naked grandeur of eternity, it is fallen 
from, or laughed at, as one of the chimeras of fa- 
naticism, and let\ to the despised efforts of those 
whom they esteem to be unaccountable people, 



9 



who subscribe for missions, and squander their 
money on Bible societies. Strange effect, you 
would think, of eternity to degrade the object 
with which it is connected ! But so it is. The 
blaze of glory, which is thrown around the martyr- 
dom of a patriot or a philosopher, is refused to the 
martyrdom of a Christian. When a statesman dies, 
Avho lifted his intrepid voice for the liberty of the 
species, we hear of nothing but of the shrines and 
the monuments of immortality. Put into his place 
one of those sturdy reformers, who, unmoved by 
councils and inquisitions, stood up for the religious 
liberties of the world: and it is no sooner done, 
than the full tide of congenial sympathy and admi- 
ration is at once arrested. We have ail heard of 
the benevolent apostleship of Howard, and what 
Christian will be behind his fellows with his ap- 
plauding testimony ? But will they, on the other 
hand, share his enthusiasm, when he tells them of 
the apostleship of Paul, who, in the sublimer sense 
of the term, accomplished the liberty of the cap- 
tive, and brought them that sat in darkness out of 
the prison-house ? Will they share in the holy be- 
nevolence of the apostle, when he pours out his 
ardent effusions in behalf of his countrymen? 
They were at that time on the eve of the cruellest 
sufferings. The whole vengeance of the Roman 
power was mustering to bear upon them. The 
siege and destruction of their city form one of the 
most dreadful tragedies in the history of war. Yet 
Paul seems to have had another object in his eye. 

9 



10 



ft was their souls and their eternity which eo- 
grossed him. Can you sympathise with him in 
this jirinciple, or join in kindred benevolence with 
him, when he says, that " my heart's desire and 
prayer for Israelis that they might be saved?" 

But to bring my list of examples to a close, the 
most remarkable of them all may be collected from 
the history of the present attempts which are now 
making to carry the knowledge of divine revelation 
into the Pagan and uncivilized countries of the 
world. Now, it may be my ignorance, but I am 
certainly not aware of the fact, that without a book 
of religious faith — without religion, in fact, 'being 
the errand and occasion, we have ever been able 
in modern times so far to compel the attention 
and to subdue the habits of savages, as to throw 
in among theiii the use and the possession of a 
WTitten language. Certain it is, however, at all 
events, that this very greatest step in the process of 
converting a wild man of the woods into a human- 
ized member of society, has been accomplished by 
Christian missionaries. They have put into the 
hands of barbarians this mighty instrument of a 
written language, and they have taught them how 
to use it.^ Th^y have formed an orthography for 

* As, for instance, Mr. John Elliot, and the Moravian bre- 
thren among the Indians of New-England and Pennsylvania; 
the Moravians of South-America ; Mr. Hans Egede, and the Mo- 
ravians in Greenland ; the latter in Labradore, among the Eski- 
maiix ; the missionaries of Otaheite, and other South Sea islands ; 
and Mr. Brunton, under the patronage of the Society for Mis- 



11 



wandering and untutored savages. They have 
given a shape and a name to their barbarous arti- 
culations ; and the children ofnnen, who lived on 
the prey of the wilderness, are now forming in vil- 
lage schools to the arts and the decencies of culti- 
vated life. Now, I am not involving you in the con- 
troversy whether civilization should precede Chris- 
tianity, or Christianity should precede civilization, 
it is not to what has been said on the subject, but 
to what has beeti done that we are pointing your 
attention. We appeal to the fact ; and as an illus- 
tration of the principle we have been attempting to 
lay before you, we call upon you to mark the feel- 
ings, and the countenance, and the language, of the 
mere academic moralist, when you put into his 
hand the authentic and proper document where the 
fact is recorded — we mean a missionary report, or 
a missionary magazine. We know that there are 
men who have so much of the firm nerve and hardi- 
hood of philosophy about them, as not to be re- 
pelled from truth in whatever shape, or from what- 
ever quarter it comes to them. But there are 
others of a humbler cast, who have transferred their 
homage from the omnipotence of truth, to the om- 
nipotence of a name, who, because missionaries, 
while they are accomplishing the civilization are 

sions to Africa and the East, who reduced the language of the 
SusjOos, a nation on the coast of Africa, to writing and grammati- 
cal form, and printed in it a spelling-book, vocabulary, catechism, 
and some tracts. Other instances besides might be given. 



12 



labouring also for the eternity of savages, have hft- 
ed up the cry of fanaticism against them — who, be- 
cause missionaries revere the word of God, and 
utter themselves in the language of the New Tes- 
tament, nauseate every word that comes from 
Ihem as overrun with the flavour and phraseology 
of methodism— who, are determined, in short, to 
abominate all that is missionary, and suffer the 
very sound of the epithet to fill their minds with 
an overwhelming association of repugnance, and 
prejudice, and disgust. 

We would not have counted this so remarkable 
an example, had it not been that missionaries are 
accomplishing the very object on which the advo- 
cates for civilization love to expatiate. They are 
"working for the temporal good far more effectually 
than any adventurer in the cause ever did before ; 
but mark the want of congeniality between the be- 
nevolence of this world, and the benevolence of the 
Christian ; they incur contempt, because they are 
working for the spiritual and eternal good also. 
Nor do the earthly blessings which they scatter so 
abundantly in their way, redeem from scorn the 
purer and the nobler principle which inspires them. 

These observations seem to be an apphcable 
introduction to the subject before us. 1 call your 
attention to the ivay in which the Bible enjoins us 
to take up the care of the poor. It does not say, in 
the text before us, Commiserate the poor; for, if it 
said no more than this, it would leave their necessi- 
ties to be provided for by the random ebullitions of 



13 



an impetuous and unreflecting sympathy. It pro- 
vides them with a better security than the mere feel- 
ing of compassion — afeeling which, however useful 
for the purpose of excitement, must be controlled 
and regulated. Feehng is but a faint and fluctuat- 
ing security. Fancy may mislead it. The sober 
realities of life may disgust it. Disappointment 
may extinguish it. Ingratitude may embitter it. 
Deceit, with its counterfeit representations, may 
allure it to the wrong object. At all events, Time 
is the little circle within which it in general expa- 
tiates. It needs the impression of sensible ob- 
jects to sustain it ; nor can it enter with zeal 
or with vivacity into the wants of the abstract 
and invisible soul. The Bible, then, instead of 
leaving the relief of the poor to the mere instinct 
of sympathy, makes it a subject for consideration — 
Blessed is he that considereth the poor — a grave 
and prosaic exercise I do allow, and which makes 
no figure in those high wrought descriptions, where 
the exquisite tale of benevolence is made up of all 
the sensibilities of tenderness on the one hand, and 
of all the ecstacies of gratitude on the other. The 
Bible rescues the cause from the mischief to which 
a heedless or unthinking sensibility would expose 
it. It brings it under the cognizance of a higher 
faculty — a faculty of steadier operation than to be 
weary in well-doing, and of sturdier endurance 
than to give it up in disgust. It calls you to consi- 
der the poor. It makes the virtue of relieving them 
a matter of compiitatioq as well as of sentiment : 



14 



and, in so doing, it puts you beyond the reach of 
the various dekisions by which you are at one time 
led to prefer the indulgence of pity to the sub- 
stantial interest of its object ; at another, are led 
to retire chagrined and disappointed from the 
scene of duty, because you have not met with the 
gratitude or the honesty that you laid your account 
with ; at another, are led to expend all your anxi- 
eties upon the accommodation of time, and to 
overlook eternity. It is the office of consideration 
to save you from all these fallacies. Under its tu- 
torage, attention to the w^ants of the poor ripens 
into principle. I want, my brethren, to press its 
advantages upon you, for I can in no other way 
recommend the society w^hose claims I am ap- 
pointed to lay before you, so effectually to your 
patronage. My time will only permit me to lay 
before you a few of their advantages, and I shall 
therefore confine myself to two leading particulars. 

1. The man who considers the poor, instead of 
slumbering over the emotions of a useless sensi- 
bility, among those imaginary beings whom poetry 
and romance have laid before him in all the ele- 
gance of fictitious history, will bestow the labour 
and the attention of actual business amons; the 
poor of the real and the living world. Benevolence 
is the burden of every romantic tale, and of every 
poet's song. It is dressed out in all the fairy en- 
chantments of imagery and eloquence. All is 
beauty to the eye and music to the ear. Nothing 



15 



seen but pictures of felicity, and nothing heard but 
the soft whispers of gratitude and affection. The 
reader is carried along by this soft and dehghtful 
representation of virtue. He accompanies his hero 
through all the fancied varieties of his history. He 
goes along with him to the cottage of poverty and 
disease, surrounded, as we may suppose, with all 
the charms of rural obscurity, and where the mur- 
murs of an adjoining rivulet accord with the finer 
and more benevolent sensibilities of the mind. He 
enters this enchanting retirement, and meets with 
a picture of distress, adorned in all the elegance of 
fiction. Perhaps a father laid on a bed of languish- 
ing, and supported by the labours of a pious and 
affectionate family, where kindness breathes in 
every word, and anxiety sits upon every counte- 
nance — where the industry of his children strug- 
gles in vain to supply the cordials which his po- 
verty denies him — where nature sinks every hour, 
and all feel a gloomy foreboding, which they strive 
to conceal, and tremble to express. The hero of 
romance enters, and the glance of his benevolent 
eye enlightens this darkest recess of misery. He 
turns him to the bed of languishing, tells the sick 
man that there is still hope, and smiles comfort on 
his despairing children. Day after day, he repeats 
his kindness and his charity. They hail his ap- 
proach as the footsteps of an angel of mercy. The 
father lives to bless his deliverer. The family re- 
ward his benevolence by the homage of an affec- 
tionate -gratitude ; and. in the piety of their even- 



16 



ing prayer, offer up thanks to the God of heaven, 
for opening the hearts of the rich to kindly and be- 
neficent attentions. The reader weeps with de- 
light. The visions of paradise play before his fan- 
cy. His tears flow, and his heart dissolves in all 
the luxury of tenderness. 

Now, we do not deny that the members of the 
Destitute Sick Society may at times have met with 
some such delightful scene to soothe and encou- 
rage them. But put the question to any of their 
visiters, and he will not fail to tell you, that if they 
had never moved but when they had something 
like this to excite and to gratify their hearts, they 
would seldom have moved at all ; and their useful- 
ness to the poor would have been reduced to a very 
humble fraction of what they have actually done 
for them. What is this but to say, that it is the bu- 
siness of a religious instructor to give you, not the 
elegant, but the true representation of benevo- 
lence — to represent it not so much as a luxurious 
indulgence to the finer sensibihties of the mind, 
but according to the sober declaration of Scripture^ 
as a work and as a labour — as a business in which 
you must encounter vexation, opposition, and fa- 
tigue ; where you are not always to meet with that 
elegance which allures the fancy, or with that hum- 
ble and retired adversity, which interests the more 
tender propensities of the heart; but as a business 
where reluctance must often be overcome by a 
sense of duty, and where, though oppressed at 
every step, by envy, disgust, and disappointment. 



17 



you are bound to persevere, in obedience to th^ 
law of God, and the sober instigation of principle. 

The benevolence of the gospel lies in actions. 
The benevolence of our fictitious writers, in a kind 
of high- wrought delicacy of feeling and sentiment. 
The one dissipates all its fervour in sighs and tears, 
and idle aspirations — the other reserves its strength 
for efforts and execution. The one regards it as a 
luxurious enjoyment for the heart — the other, as a 
work and business for the hand. The one sits in 
indolence, and broods, in visionary rapture, over its 
schemes of ideal philanthropy — the other steps 
abroad, and enlightens, by its presence, the dark 
and pestilential hovels of disease. The one wastes 
away in empty ejaculation — the other gives time 
and trouble to the work of beneficence — gives edu- 
cation to the orphan — provides clothes for the na- 
ked, and lays food on the table of the hungry. The 
one is indolent and capricious, and often does mis- 
chief by the occasional overflowings of a whimsi- 
cal and ill-directed charity — -the other is vigilant 
and discerning, and takes care lest his distributions 
be injudicious, and the effort of benevolence be 
misapplied. The one is soothed with the luxury 
of feeling, and reclines in easy and indolent satis- 
faction — the other shakes off the deceitful languor 
of contemplation and solitude, and delights in a 
scene of activity. Remember, that virtue, in ge-^ 
neral, is not to feel, but to do — not merely to con- 
ceive a purpose, but to carry that purpose into 
execution — not merely to be overpowered t^y the 

3 



18 



impression of a senlimentj but to practise what it 
loves, and to imitate what it admires. 

To be benevolent in speculation, is often to be 
selfish in action and in reality. The vanity and the 
indolence of man delude him into a thousand in- 
consistencies. He professes to love the name and 
the sem" lance of virtue, but the labour of exertioa 
and of self-denial terrifies him from attempting it. 
The emotions of kindness are delightful to his bo^ 
som, but then they are little better than a selfish in- 
dulgence — they terminate in his own enjoyment — ■ 
they are a mere refinement of luxury. His eye 
melts over the picture of fictitious distress, while 
not a tear is left for the actual starvation and mi- 
sery with which he is surrounded. It is easy to 
indulge the imaginations of a visionary heart in 
going over a scene of fancied affliction, because 
here there is no sloth to overcome — no avaricious 
propensity to control — no offensive or disgusting cir- 
cumstance to allay the unmingled impression of 
sympathy which a soft and elegant picture is cal- 
culated to awaken. It is not so easy to be benevo- 
lent in action and in reality, because here there is fa- 
tigue to undergo — there is time and money to give 
— there is the mortifying spectacle of vice, and 
folly, and ingratitude, to encounter. We like to 
give you the fair picture of love to man, because to 
throw over it false and fictitious embellishments, 
is injurious to its cause. These elevate the fancy 
by romantic visions which can never be realized. 
They embitter the heart by the most severe and 



19 



mortifying disappointments, and often force us tQ 
retire in disgust from what heaven has intended to 
be the theatre of our discipline and preparation. 
Take the representation of the Bible. Benevolence 
is a work and a labour. It often calls for the se- 
verest efforts of vigilance and industry — a habit of 
action not be acquired in the school of fine senti- 
ment, but in the walks of business, in the dark and 
dismal receptacles of misery — in the hospitals of 
disease — in the putrid lanes of great cities, where 
poverty dwells in lank and ragged wretchednesSj 
agonized with pain, faint with hunger, and shiver- 
ing in a frail and unsheltered tenement. 

You are not to conceive yourself a real lover of 
your species, and entitled to the praise or the re- 
ward of benevolence because you weep over a 
fictitious representation of human misery. A man 
may w eep in the indolence of a studious and con- 
templative retirement; he may breathe all the ten- 
der aspirations of humanity ; but what avails all 
this warm and effusive benevolence, if it is never 
exerted— -if it never rise to execution— if it never 
carry him to the accomplishment of a single be- 
nevolent purpose — if it shrink from activity, and 
sicken at the pain of fetigue ? It is easy, indeed, to 
come forw^ard with the cant and hypocrisy of fine 
sentiment — to have a heart trained to the emotions 
of benevolence, while the hand refuses the labours 
of discharging its offices — to weep for amusement, 
and to have nothing to spare for human suffering 
but the tribute of an indolent and unmeaning sym- 



20 



pathy. Many of you must be acquainted with that 
corruption of Christian doctrine which has been 
termed Antinomianism. It professes the highest 
reverence for the Supreme Being, while it refuses 
obedience to the lessons of his authority. It 
professes the highest gratitude for the suffer- 
ings of Christ, while it refuses that course of 
life and action which he demands of his followers. 
It professes to adore the tremendous Majesty of 
heaven, and to weep in shame and in sorrow over 
the sinfulness of degraded humanity, while every 
day it insults heaven by the enormity of its mis- 
deeds, and evinces the insincerity of its wilful per- 
severance in the practice of iniquity. This Antino- 
mianism is generally condemned; and none repro- 
bate it more than the votaries of fine sentiment — your 
men of taste and elegant literature — your epicures 
of feeling, who riot in all the luxury of theatrical 
emotion, and who, in their admiration of what is 
tender, and beautiful, and cultivated, have always 
turned with disgust from the doctrines of a sour 
and illiberal theology. We may say to such, as 
Nathan to David, "Thou art the man." Theirs 
is to all intents and purposes Antinomianism — and 
an Antinomianism of a far more dangerous and de- 
ceitful kind, than the Antinomianism of a spurious 
and pretended orthodoxy. In the Antinomianism 
of religion, there is nothing to fascinate or deceive 
you. It wears an air of repulsive bigotry, more fit- 
ted to awaken disgust, than to gain the admiration 
of proselytes. There is a glaring deformity in its 



21 



aspect, which alarms you at the very outset, and is 
an outrage to that natural moraUty which, dark 
and corrupted as it is, is still strong enough to lift 
its loud remonstrance against it. But in the Anti- 
nomianism of high-wrought sentiment, there is a 
deception far more insinuating. Ft steals upon you 
under the semblance of virtue. It is supported by 
the delusive colouring of imagination and poetry. 
It has all the graces and embellishments of litera- 
ture to recommend it. Vanity is soothed, and con- 
science lulls itself to repose in this dream of feeling 
and of indolence. 

Let us dismiss these lying vanities, and regulate 
our lives by the truth and soberness of the New 
Testament. Benevolence is not in word and in 
tongue, but in deed and in truth. It is a business 
with men as they are, and with human life as drawn 
by the rough hand of experience. It is a duty which 
you must perform at the call of principle, though 
there be no voice of eloquence to give splendour 
to your exertions, and no music or poetry to lead 
your willing footsteps through the bowers of en- 
chantment. It is not the impulse of high and ec- 
static emotion. It is an exertion of principle. You 
must go to the poor man's cottage, though no ver- 
dure flourish around it, and no rivulet be nigh to 
delight you by the gentleness of its murmur^;. If 
you look for the romantic simplicity of fiction, you 
will be disappointed : but it is your duty to perse- 
vere, in spite of every discouragement. Benevo- 
lence is not merely a feeling, but a principle — not 



22 



a dream of rapture for the fancy to indulge in, but a 
business for the hand to execute. 

It must now be obvious to all of you, that it is 
not enough that you give money, and add your 
name to the contributors of charity — you must give 
it with judgment. You must give your time and 
your attention. You must descend to the trouble 
of examination. You must rise from the repose of 
contemplation, and make yourself acquainted viith 
the objects of your benevolent exercises. Will he 
husband your charity with care, or will he squander 
it away in idleness and dsssipation ? Will he satisfy 
himself with the brutal luxury of the moment, and 
neglect the supply of his more substantial necessi- 
ties, or suffer his children to be trained in igno- 
rance and depravity ? W^ill charity corrupt him by 
laziness ? What is his peculiar necessity ? Is it 
the want of health or the want of employment ? 
Is it the pressure of a numerous family ? Does he 
need medicine to administer to the diseases of his 
children ? Does he need fuel or raiment to protect 
them from the inclemency of winter? Does he 
need money to satisfy the yearly demands of his 
landlord, or to purchase books and to pay for the 
education of his offspring ? 

To give money is not to do all the wwk and la- 
bour of benevolence. You must go to the poor 
man's bed. You must lend your hand to the work 
of assistance. You must examine his accounts. 
You must try to recover those debts which are due 
to his family. You must try to recover those 



23 



wages which are detained by the injuries or the ra- 
pacity of his master. You must employ your me- 
diation with his superiors. You must represent to 
them the necessities of his situation. You must 
soHcit their assistance, and awaken their feehngs 
to the tale of his calamity. This is benevolence in 
its plain, and sober, and substantial reality, though 
eloquence may have withheld its imagery, and 
poetry may have denied its graces and its embel- 
lishments. This is true and unsophisticated good- 
ness. It may be recorded in no earthly documents ; 
but if done under the influence of Christian princi- 
ple — in a word, done unto Jesus, it is written in 
the book of heaven, and will give a new lustre to 
that crown to which his disciples look forward in 
time, and will wear through eternity. 

You have all heard of the division of labour, and I 
wish you to understand, that the advantage of this 
principle may be felt as much in the operations of 
charity, as in the operations of trade and manu- 
factures. The work of beneficence does not lie in 
the one act of giving money ; there must be the 
act of attendance ; there must be the act of inqui- 
ry ; there must be the act of judicious application. 
But I can conceive that an individual may be so 
deficient in the varied experience and attention 
which a work so extensive demands, that he may 
retire in disgust and discouragement from the prac- 
tice of charity altogether. The institution of a So- 
ciety, such as this, saves this individual to the cause. 
It takes upon itself all the subsequent acts in the 



24 



work and labour of love, and restricts his part to 
the mere act of giving money. It fills the middle 
space between the dispensers and the recipients of 
charity. The habits of many who now hear me, 
may disqualify them for the work of examination. 
They may have no time for it; they may live at a 
distance from the objects ; they may neither know 
how to introduce, nor how to conduct themselves 
in the management of all the details ; their want of 
practice and of experience may disable them for 
the work of repelhng imposition ; they should try 
to gain the necessary habits ; it is right that every 
individual among us, should each, in his own 
sphere, consider the poor, and qualify themselves 
for a judicious and discriminating charity. But, 
in the mean time, the Society for the Relief of the 
Destitute Sick, is an instrument ready made to our 
hands. Avail yourselves of this instrument imme- 
diately, as, by the easiest part of the exercise of 
charity, which is to give money, you carry home to 
the poor all the benefits of its most difficult exer- 
cises. The experience w hich you want, the mem- 
bers of this laudable Society are in possession of. 
By the work and observation of years, a stock of 
practical wisdom is now accumulated among them. 
They have been long inured to all that is loath- 
some and discouraging in this good work, and 
they have nerve, and hardihood, and principle to 
front it. They are every way qualified to be the 
carriers of your bounty, for it is a path they have 
long travelled in. Give the money, and these con- 



25 



scientioiis men will soon bring it into contact with 
the right objects. They know the way through all 
the obscurities of this metropolis, and they can 
bring the offerings of your charity to people whom 
you will never see, and into houses which you will 
never enter. It is not easy to conceive, far less to 
compute the extent of human misery; but these 
men can give you experience for it. They can 
show you their registers of the sick and of the dy- 
ing ; they are famiUar with disease in all its varie- 
ties of faintness, and breathlessness, and pain. — 
Sad union ! they are called to witness it in conjunc- 
tion with poverty ; and well do they know that there 
is an eloquence in the imploring looks of these 
helpless poor, which no description can set before 
you. Oh ! my brethren, figure to yourselves the 
calamity in all its soreness, and measure your 
bounty by fhe actual greatness of the claims, and 
not by the feebleness of their advocate. 

1 have trespassed upon your patience ; but, at the 
hazard of carrying my address to a length that is 
unusual, 1 must still say more. Nor would 1 ever 
forgive myself if I neglected to set the eternity of 
the poor in all its importance before you. This is 
the second point of consideration to which 1 wish 
to direct you. The man who considers the poor 
will give his chief anxiety to the wants of their 
eternity. It must be evident to all of you that this 
anxiety is little felt. I do not appeal for the evi- 
dence of this to the selfish part of mankind — there 
w^e are not to expect it. I go to those who are 

4 



26 



really benevolent — who have a wish to make others 
happy, and who take trouble in so doing; and it is 
a striking observation, how little the salvation of 
these others is the object of that benevolence which 
makes them so amiable. It will be found that in 
and by far the greater num.ber of instances, this 
principle is all consumed on the accommodations 
of time, and the necessities of the body. It is the 
meat which feeds them — the garment which co- 
Ters them — the house which shelters them — the 
money which purchases all things ; these, I say, 
are what form the chief topics of benevolent 
anxiety. Now, we do not mean to discourage 
this principle. We cannot afford it ; there is too 
little of it ; and it forms too refreshing an exception 
to that general selfishness which runs throughout 
the haunts of business and ambition, for us to say 
any thing against it. We are not cold-blooded 
enough to refuse our delighted concurrence to an 
exertion so amiable in its principle, and so pleas- 
ing in the warm and comfortable spectacle which 
it lays before us. The poor, it is true, ought never 
to forget, that it is to their own industry, and to 
the wisdom and economy of their own manage- 
ment, that they are to look for the elements of 
subsistence — that if idleness and prodigality shall 
lay hold of the mass of our population, no bene- 
volence, however unbounded, can ever repair a 
mischief so irrecoverable — that if they will not la- 
bour for themselves, it is not in the power of the 
rich to create a sufficiency for them 5 and that 



27 



though every heart were opened, and every purse 
emptied in the cause, it would absolutely go for 
nothing towards forming a well-fed, a well-lodged, 
or a well-conditioned peasantry. Still, however, 
there are cases which no foresight could prevent, 
and no industry could provide for — where the blow 
falls heavy and unexpected on some devoted son 
or daughter of misfortune, and where, though 
thoughtlessness and folly may have had their share, 
benevolence, not very nice in its calculations, will 
feel the overpowering claim of actual, helpless, and 
imploring misery. Now, 1 again offer my cheer- 
ful testimony to such benevolence as this ; I count 
it delightful to see it singling out its object, and 
sustaining it against the cruel pressure of age and 
of indigence ; and when 1 enter a cottage where I 
see a warmer fire-side, or more substantial provi- 
sion, than the visible means can account for, I say 
that the landscape, in all its summer glories, does 
not offer an object so gratifying, as when referred 
to the vicinity of the great man's house, and the 
people who live in it, and am told that I will find 
my explanation there. Kind and amiable people ! 
your benevolence is most lovely in its display, but 
Oh ! it is perishable in its consequences. Does it 
never occur to you, that in a few years this favo- 
rite will die — that he will go to the place where 
neither cold nor hunger will reach him, but that a 
mighty interest remains, of which both of us may 
know the certainty, though neither you nor I can 
calculate the extent. Your benevolence is too 



28 



short — it does not shoot far enough a-head — it is like 
regaling a child with a sweetmeat or a toy, and 
then abandoning the happy unreflecting infant to 
exposure. You make the poor old man happy 
with your crumbs and your fragments, but he is 
an infant on the mighty range of infinite duration ; 
and will you leave the soul, which has this infini- 
ty to go through, to its chance? How comes it 
that the grave should throw so impenetrable a 
shroud over the realities of eternity ? How comes 
it that heaven, and hell, and judgment, should be 
treated as so many nonentities, and that there 
should be as little real and operative sympathy felt 
for the soul, which lives for ever, as for the body 
after it is dead, or for the dust into which it moul- 
ders ? Eternity is longer than time ; the arithme- 
tic, my brethren, is all on one side upon this ques- 
tion ; and the wisdom which calculates, and guides 
itself by calculation, gives its weighty and respect- 
able support to what may be called the benevo- 
lence of faith. 

Now, if there be one employment more fitted 
than another to awaken this benevolence, it is the 
peculiar employment of that Society for which I 
am now pleading. I would have anticipated such 
benevolence from the situation they occupy, and 
the information before the public bears testimony 
to the fact. The truth is, that the diseases of the 
body may be looked upon as so many outlets 
through which the soul finds its way to eternity. 
Now, it is at these outlets that the members of this 




29 



Society have stationed themselves. This is the In- 
teresting point of survey at which they stand, and 
from which they command a look of both worlds. 
They have placed themselves in the avenues which 
lead from time to eternity, and they have often to 
witness the awful transition of a soul hovering at 
the entrance—struggling its way through the valley 
of the shadow of death, and at last breaking loose 
from the confines of all that is visible. Do you think 
it likely that men, with such spectacles before 
them, will withstand the sense of eternity ? No, my 
brethren, they cannot, they have not. Eternity, I 
rejoice to announce to you, is not forgotten by them; 
and with their care for the diseases of the body, 
they are neither blind nor indifferent to the fact, 
that the soul is diseased also. We know it well. 
There is an indolent and superficial theology, which 
turns its eyes from the danger, and feels no pressing 
call for the application of the remedy — which re- 
poses more in its own vague and self-assumed con- 
ceptions of the mercy of God, than in the firm and 
consistent representations of the New Testament — 
which overlooks the existence of the disease alto- 
gether, and therefore feels no alarm, and exerts no 
urgency in the business — which, in the face of all 
the truths and all the severities that are uttered in 
the word of God, leaves the soul to its chance ; or, 
in other wwds, by neglecting to administer every 
thing specific for the salvation of the soul, leaves it 
to perish. We do not want to involve you in con- 
troversies; we only ask you to open the New Tes- 



30 

tament, and attend to the obvious meaning of a 
word which occurs frequently in its pages — we 
mean the word saved* The term surely implies^ 
that the present state of the thing to be saved, is a 
lost and an undone state. If a tree be in a healthful 
state from its infancy, you never apply the term 
saved to it, though you see its beautiful foliage, its 
flourishing blossoms, its abundant produce, and its 
progressive ascent through all the varieties incident- 
al to a sound and a prosperous tree. But if it were 
diseased in its infancy, and ready to perish, and if 
it were restored by management and artificial ap- 
plications, then you would say of this tree that it 
was saved; and the very term implies some previ- 
ous state of uselessness and corruption. What, then, 
are we to make of the frequent occurrence of this 
term in the New Testament, as applied to a human 
being ? If men come into this world pure and inno- 
cent, and have nothing more to do but to put forth 
the powers with which nature has endowed them^ 
and so rise through the progressive stages of virtue 
and excellence, to the rewards of immortality, you 
would not say of these men that they were saved 
when they were translated to these rewards. These 
rewards of man are the natural effects of his obe- 
dience, and the term saved is not at all applicable 
to such a supposition. But the God of the Bible says 
differently. If a man obtain heaven at all, it is by 
being saved. He is in a diseased state, and it is by 
the healing application of the blood of the Son of 
God, that he is restored from that state. The very 



SI 



title applied to him proves the same thing. He is 
called our Saviour. The deliverance which he 
effects is called our salvation. The men whom he 
doth dehver are called the saved. Doth not this im- 
ply some previous state of disease and helplessness? 
And from the frequent and incidental occurrence of 
this term, may we not gather an additional testi- 
mony to the truth of what is elsewhere more ex- 
pressly revealed to us, that w^e are lost by nature, 
and that to obtain recovery, we must be found in 
Him who came to seek and to save that which is 
lost. He that believeth on the Son of God shall be 
saved, but he that believeth not, the wrath of God 
abideth on him. 

We know that there are some who loathe this 
representation ; but this is just another example of 
the substantial interests of the poor being sacrificed 
to mismanagement and delusion. It is to be hoped 
that there are many who have looked the disease 
fairly in the face, and are ready to reach forward 
the remedy adapted to relieve it. We should have 
no call to attend to the spiritual interests of men, if 
they could safely be left to themselves, and to the 
spontaneous operation of those powers with which 
it is supposed that nature has endowed them. But 
this is not the state of the case. We come into the 
world with the principles of sin and condemnation 
within us ; and, in the congenial atmosphere of this 
world's example, these ripen fast for the execution 
of the sentence. During the period of this short but 
interesting passage to another world, the remedy is 



32 



in the gospel held out to all, and the freedom and 
universality of its invitations, while it opens assur- 
ed admission to all who will, must aggravate the 
weight and severity of the sentence to those who 
will not; and upon them the dreadful energy of 
that saying will be accomplished, — " How shall 
they escape if they neglect so great a salvation ?" 

We know part of your labours for the eternity 
of the poor. We know that you have brought the 
Bible into contact with many a soul. And we are 
sure that this is suiting the remedy to the disease ; 
for the Bible contains those words which are the 
powder of God through faith unto salvation, to every 
one who believes them. 

To this established instrument for working faith 
in the heart, add the instrument of hearing. When 
you give the Bible, accompany the gift with the 
living energy of a human voice — let prayer, and 
advice, and explanation, be brought to act upon 
them and let the warm and deeply felt earnest- 
ness of your hearts, discharge itself upon theirs in 
the impressive tones of sincerity, and friendship, 
and good w^ill. This is going substantially to work. 
It is, if I may use the expression, bringing the right 
element to bear upon the case before you ; and be 
assured, every treatment of a convinced and guil- 
ty mind is superficial and ruinous, which does not 
lead it to the Saviour, and bring before it his sacri- 
fice and atonement, and the influences of that spi- 
rit bestowed through his obedience on all who be- 
lieve on Him. 



'33 



While in the full vigour of health, we may count 
it enough to take up with something short of this. 
But — striking testimony to evangelical truth I go 
to the awful reality of a human soul on the eve of 
its departure from the body, and you will find that 
all those vapid sentimentalities which partake not 
of the substantial doctrine of the New Testament, 
are good for nothing. Hold up your face, my breth- 
ren, for the truth and simplicity of the Bible. Be 
not ashamed of its phraseology. It is the right in- 
strument to handle in the great work of calling a 
human soul out of darkness into marvellous light. 
Stand firm and secure on the impregnable princi« 
pie, that this is the word of God, and that all taste, 
and imagination, and science, must give way be- 
fore its overbearing authority. Walk in the foot- 
steps of your Saviour, in the twofold office of caring 
for the diseases of the body, and administering to 
the wants of the soul ; and though you may fail in 
the farmer — though the patient may never arise 
and walk, yet, by the blessing of heaven upon your 
fervent and effectual endeavours, the latter object 
may be gained — the soul may be hghtened of all its 
anxieties — the whole burden of its diseases may 
be swept away — it may be of good cheer, because 
its sins are forgiven — and the right direction may 
be impressed upon it which will carry it forward 
in progress to a happy eternity. Death may not be 
averted, but death may be disarmed. It may be 
^stript of its terrors, and instead of a devouring ene- 
my^ it may be hailed as a messenger of triumph. 

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